Thursday, March 16, 2006

Thursday political reading

When I wrote The Right Man in 2002, I tried to do justice to the president's personality, both virtues and vices. It itemized so many of the faults that have had their cost over the past year: the president's sometimes over-hasty decision-making, his disinclination to ask sufficiently probing questions, his aversion to detail, the overcentralization of decision-making, his often surprisingly poor personnel decisions, his unwillingness or inability to explain himself as fully and convincingly as a president ought. Back then, those criticisms provoked some controversy. But just as back then we needed a reality check against some of the over-worshipful coverage of this presidency, so today we need a reality check against the barrage of often recklessly unjust criticism of everything and anything this administration does.

Yale will have more explaining to do to prospective students and their parents late this month when it begins sending out acceptance letters to 1,300 applicants for coveted positions in its undergraduate class of 2010. The highly selective school will also mail out 19,300 rejection letters. "I can't imagine it will be easy for Yale to convince those it rejects that the Taliban student isn't taking a place they could have had," a former Yale administrator told me. Mr. Rahmatullah boasts only a fourth-grade education and a high-school equivalency degree.

Yale should be ashamed. Their actions are on par with admitting a leader of the NAZI party in 1943. Disgusting.

While the Gang of Fourteen are patting themselves on the back for getting a few stalled judges a vote on the senate floor lets not forget that their are quite a few judicial nominees waiting on an up or down vote in the senate. Bob Novak's column today looks at the 11 nominees waiting for senate action. As a reminder, our local RINO, Sen. DeWine was part of the Gang of Fourteen fiasco. If you want better senate representation, consider DeWine's primary challenger - Bill Pierce.

Lastly, U.S. forces on Thursday launched the largest airborne assault since the U.S.-led invasion, targeting insurgent strongholds north of the capital, the military said. The military said the operation was aimed at clearing "a suspected insurgent operating area" northeast of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, and was expected to continue over several days. Good! If we know where they are operating from we should take them out mercilessly. The insurgents are not dumb enough to fight directly against our forces and will continue to take pot shots at our troops and plant roadside bombs.